I was born in Brooklyn (like everybody), but I served in the Israeli army; my first reserve duty was the Six-Day War. My father was a Palestinian--born in Poland, emigrated to Palestine when he was three years old, in 1920. I inherited a deep love of Israel from him. I hate the stream of lies I read and hear daily about Israel. I love Israel's people--all of them.
[Contact me: joel dot orr at gmail dot com]

Thursday, November 28, 2002

WIG: Is Sharon creating a monster?

Ruth Matar, Women in Green Radio Program Arutz Sheva, November 27, 2002Last night I returned to Israel after a ten-day stay in the United States. I had gone to the States to attend America-Israel fairs in Chicago, Illinois and Houston, Texas. These fairs are organized all over the United States by friends of Israel to give a boost to the Israeli economy, since very few tourists come here because of the Palestinian suicide bombers. On this occasion, therefore, I went to the States, not just as Ruth Matar, Co-leader of Women in Green, but also as Ruth Matar, Jewelry and Judaica Designer and Craftsman. To all the organizers and friends who I met at these fairs: You are wonderful, and your standing with Israel gives us renewed courage in these very difficult times.

I returned to a country in political and economic turmoil. Many of the people who have been some of Sharon’s staunch supporters feel they are about to be outmaneuvered and betrayed by their erstwhile hero. Sharon has always been admired for his surprise military tactics to get the best of his enemies. For example, in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when things looked very bleak for Israel, Sharon, in a surprise move, encircled the Egyptian army and would have been able to march on to Cairo if not for American intervention. Since Sharon was elected with a landslide majority in February of the year 2000, he has used such surprise tactics on the very people who brought him to power.

Over the span of his public career Ariel Sharon has taken very firm positions on issues concerning Israel as the Jewish homeland, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and the Oslo Accords. The man whom we admired and believed in, the man who expressed our deepest feelings, the man whom we trusted with Israel’s future, our national security and defense has shocked us to the core. He has done--as it is said in the military--“about face!” contradicting the positions which he took prior to his winning the election as Prime Minister. I’m going to quote from some articles which were published in the Jerusalem Post and written by Ariel Sharon under his own byline prior to his election.

September 3, 1993, YOU CAN’T DANCE WITH A MURDERER
“By recognizing this murderer’s organization, the PLO, the government has committed an act of madness. By reviving Israel’s greatest enemy on the eve of its disintegration and turning it into Israel’s shield against Hamas, the government has added crime to folly….There can be no reconciliation, historic or otherwise, with the man who ordered the murders of school children in Avivim, Maalot and Antwerp, and of eleven Jewish athletes in Munich…”

August 3, 1994, SICKNESS IN JERUSALEM
“For the first time, a Jewish government has formerly recognized Jordan’s standing vis-a-vis holy Islamic sites in Jerusalem. All this without a referendum, without elections, a Knesset or cabinet decision. It is as though it was a private matter. No, they would probably have taken more care over a private matter. Jordan isn’t the only country with standing on the Temple Mount. The King of Morocco is angling for influence, and the Monarch of Saudi Arabia is lusting for a share. And what about Yasser Arafat? A vigorous argument is raging over who has more right. Yet, the only element not cited by the government of Israel is the Jewish People. Some clarification is in order: only one people--the Jewish People--exercises sovereignty over Jerusalem in all its parts--especially our Holy sites, and primarily the Temple Mount. We cannot accept any foreign sovereignty over Jerusalem. Full rights of religious worship, yes; sovereign status--never.”

August 14, 1994, A LACK OF SELF-RESPECT
“Jerusalem is our capital only because of the Temple Mount. It is because of the Temple Mount that we say on Seder night, ‘Next year in rebuilt Jerusalem.’ It is because of the Temple Mount that we have settled in the Land of Israel and not in Argentina or Uganda; it is ‘the land of Zion and Jerusalem’, as our national anthem has it.When Jews pray, wherever they may be in the world, they face the Temple Mount. When Moslems pray, even if they are on the Temple Mount, they face Mecca.

Whoever is willing to relinquish full control over the Temple Mount is actually ready, now emotionally, tomorrow in practice, to forfeit everything.

Before 1967 we didn’t possess the Temple Mount, but we never stopped, even for one second, striving to return to it. I used to say to my late son Gur when he was a child and we would ascend Mount Zion to view the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is ours but it is not yet in our hands.

That is why the most important result of the Six Day War was not the winning of the Sinai or the Golan, but our return to our holy place, the Temple Mount.”

November 2, 1994, THINGS THAT ARE SACRED “I didn’t vote for the peace agreement with Jordan, even though I really wanted to. I am in favor of peace agreements with all the Arab countries, particularly Jordan. Jordan is the existing Palestinian state and there mustn’t be another. One thing is totally unacceptable: granting the Kingdom of Jordan a formal role vis-a-vis the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site in a political agreement. No nation in the world would have done such a thing. No sane government would have dared contemplate such a step. Only those who hold nothing sacred could behave this way. And if nothing is sacred, we shall not go on existing here. Our generation has no right and what, after all is the span of a single generation--to deprive future generations of the Jewish People’s holiest site? Conceding rule over the Temple Mount is the beginning of conceding rule over Jerusalem.”

It is hard to believe that the man who wrote these stirring words is the man who after his election formed a unity government with the architect of Oslo, Shimon Peres.

It is hard to believe that this is the same man who now professes that if elected he will once again form a unity government with the Labor Party. The Labor Party has just elected as its standard-bearer the ultra-leftist Amram Mitzna, who is offering the Palestinians not only negotiations under fire, but Israeli withdrawal under fire.

Mitzna explicitly promised that his first move as Prime Minister, should he ever reach this post, would be to evacuate all the Gazan settlements. He also promised to immediately resume negotiations with Yasser Arafat--disregarding Arafat’s failure to honor every previous agreement with Israel and without even demanding that the Palestinians stop the violence in the interim--and to evacuate most West Bank settlements within a year of taking office, with or without an agreement.

In other words, what Israel had previously offered in exchange for an end to the conflict Labor is now offering free of charge--with not even a temporary halt to the violence required in exchange. It is hard to imagine a more ringing endorsement of terror’s efficacy. In fact, the Palestinian Authority continues to heap praise on Labor Party Chairman Amram Mitzna and called on Israelis to vote for him in the January 2003 election if they want peace and security--the first time that Palestinian Authority officials have openly endorsed a candidate.

What has happened to Ariel Sharon? The man who called the Palestinian entity a terrorist entity now supports the creation of a Palestinian state. Is his motive to attract votes from the left? Or is his motive to remain in the good graces of George W. Bush and the US State Department?

To discuss this important question, we have with us tonight Yossi Ben-Aharon, former Director-General of the Primer Minister’s office.

But first, my Co-leader Nadia Matar will discuss how the Government and the Media refuse to acknowledge the will of the majority.

Even if Mr. Sharon, in his heart, is totally opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state and does not believe it will materialize, his words are raising expectations in every capital in the world, and carry the risk of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Palestinian terror war is a key link in the worldwide chain of Islamic terrorism. There is no distinction between Saddam Hussein’s use of poison gas against the Kurds and Shiites, Osama bin Laden’s incineration of 3,000 Americans in New York and Washington, and the murder of over 700 Israelis by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Yasser Arafat’s own Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade since Sharon became Prime Minister. They are one and the same menace.

President George W. Bush and the State Department continue to pressure Israel to establish a Palestinian state. In fact, the United States is planning to submit the final draft of the Road Map Plan to the Quartet on December 20. The Americans are pushing the Plan so that a Palestinian state be established as soon as possible. One of the plan’s first demands is a total freeze on Jewish construction in Yesha, Judea, Samaria and Gaza though Arabs will be permitted to continue building freely.

I firmly believe what Knesset Member Rabbi Benny Elon is alleged to have said at the Christian Solidarity Rally on May 11 in Washington D.C. “I believe that the United States Christians are the only ones who can stop the danger of a Palestinian state.” I would like to add, however, that I think that Jews are just as important in this endeavor to convince President George W. Bush to stop pressuring Israel. Establishing a Palestinian state in the Holy Land is directly against what is written in the Tenach (the Bible).

The following is a copy of an email sent by Judy Stone of Grapevine, Texas to President Bush and other government officials.

Dear Mr. President:

If the blowing up of Bus #20 in a west Jerusalem neighborhood during rush hour this morning does not BLOW UP the ROAD MAP to a Palestinian state, what will it take? I am a Christian who has often ridden Bus #20 when I have visited Jerusalem. I am vividly picturing the absolute horror in my own mind. Can you not see it?

At least 11 have died, INNOCENT, UNARMED young people and adults. How many arms, legs, heads, guts strewn over the street and hanging from the trees and buildings will it take? How much human blood? Yes, it IS human blood, not the blood of monkeys and pigs, as the Muslim religion teaches its adherents in the Middle East and even in its Islamic schools IN THE UNITED STATES!

How much HORROR are the Israelis expected to absorb?

Michael Freund just wrote an article in the Jerusalem Post enumerating 15,298 terror attacks in Israel since the “new intifada began over 2 years ago. Now the number is 15,299. How many more?

No more pressure on Israel to facilitate the establishment of a Palestinian state! PLEASE! It is absolutely insane!

Signed: Judy StoneIt is tremendously important that you email or fax President Bush to stop pressuring Israel with the Road Map to a Palestinian state. Unfortunately, the establishment of a Palestinian state “means the end of the State of Israel”.

Fax President George W. Bush at 1-202-456-2461, or email him at president@whitehouse.gov

Your letter may be the one which will convince President Bush that his constituency is passionate about the survival of the Jewish State of Israel!